Passover the cheesecake........

Here I am back in the kitchen. I had sworn off cooking, particularly baking, a couple of days ago in anger. The week before I had made a pumpkin pie, rice pudding and a Guinness Cake, which is similar to a spice cake, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. All were made from scratch. Well I did buy the can of Guinness that was needed. Sacred ingredients notwithstanding, the pudding, pie and cake were made from scratch over the course of the week. A couple days later I noticed the pie plate in the sink and washed it. A little while later I experienced a sinking feeling when I noticed a small piece of pie in the trash. The following week I saw crumbled remnants of the Guinness Cake being disposed of in a similar fashion. The where abouts of the rice pudding are still to be determined although I believe it was all eaten. In my anger I decided not to bake anything for the next year. In reading this you may be concluding that the desserts were bad. That’s not the case. My family is just spoiled. They just don’t care for left overs so they devour what they will fresh from the oven and then pretend there isn’t any food in the house. Anyway, it all made me really angry. I read recently that anger is addictive and I believe that’s true. I’ve seen that in my own extended family. It’s usually those that respond first and the loudest to any inconvenience so I decided quietly and with some thought to not feel hurt. I thought I’d change my own behavior and stop baking, for a year or more. It worked for a couple of days and then tonight my youngest child suggested I make a cheesecake for dessert for tomorrows Passover dinner. He made the suggestion just as I was creating a shopping list for tomorrow, needing brisket and turkey and more. I began to rant. I began to rave. Then I began to check out the Philly cream cheese package recipe and add the ingredients to my list. Four packs of cream cheese, coconut macaroons for the crust, oranges and strawberries for the sauce, etc. etc. As I write this, the cake is in the oven. It was the youngest child in the house that asked the four questions.

1. Why are you so angry Mom?

2. Why don’t you just live in the moment?

3. Who is coming for dinner tomorrow?

4. Can you make this cheesecake for Passover?

I never made a cheese cake before but it looks like a happy thing. The edge is slightly cracked and it’s a beautiful creamy color with flecks of orange rind throughout. Tomorrow it will be adorned with a strawberry orange sauce that I will spike with Grand Marnier, to make it an even happier thing. Is it Serendipitous that during my own Holy season of Lent cooking dinner for Passover would remind me of the power of love?

Blessed Be

1. Blessed be

   Every note in the uni-verse

   Resonating in the heart of those who listen

   In endless arrangements of form and beauty

   Inspiring infinite blessings

   A gift of depth and expansion

   Creating ascension

   With all that is Holy in song

   
   

   The Abbey of the Arts Blog is having a Poetry Party until March 26th and this was my contribution to the theme "Blessed Be." Whether it be a song derived from nature like the 'heavy metal' chirping of the birds currently these Spring time mornings or a song written in any music genre or culture as an expression of human nature, all songs are woven with a thread of holiness. The sound created by the chirping of birds in the Spring is believed by some to help the grass, trees and flowers grow. Take notice in Summer how mornings will be quieter as their work has slowed down. The effect of music on the brain is believed to have helped create human nature. Music affects the body on a cellular level so deeply science is just beginning to tap the surface of the relationship between sound and growth. In the beginning was the word.......spoken word created the universe. Music is a powerful gift to all and one of the keys to the universe. Blessed Be.

Fire, Earth, Air and Water

In the Astrology class I began in March it was suggested that we meditate on the four elements ~ fire, earth, air and water ~ to gain understanding of how they influence and affect the sun signs of the zodiac. The month before I had read a book I picked up at the Rubin Museum in New York by Tibetan Lama Gehlek Rimpoche that discussed the Buddhist beliefs of life, death and reincarnation. To my surprise the elements were integral to the understanding of these Buddhist concepts. And now, this Lenten Season, I noticed my favorite blog devoted to spiritual practice, the Abbey of the Arts, is offering an e-course on the Christian practice of praying with the elements.

Three signs pointing in the same direction and then I remembered Anam Cara. Anam Cara translates from Gaelic as soul friend and refers to the Celtic Spiritual belief of souls connecting and bonding. The Celts believe when you are blessed with an Anam Cara, you have arrived at that most sacred place, home.

My deepest frame of reference for all that the elements encompass is within the heart of Celtic Spirituality, a spiritual practice woven with nature and its oneness in relation to religion. My ancestors are from Western Ireland, which may explain my emotional connection. I’ve never visited Ireland yet have been profoundly touched through my Grandmothers love and music. Simply transcendent, Van Morrison’s lyrics in ‘Into the Mystic” convey and channel Celtic spirituality, the elements and Love. Written in the 60’s the language is a bit archaic although even when he wrote the words it was. My belief is that he was speaking of the timelessness of being and so it served his song. It occurred to me out of the blue that this song that I, like so many others, hold dear to my heart contains my knowing. The understanding of how the elements are within the universe, uni-verse, one verse and that verse is Love. Listen with your heart.

We were born before the wind

Also younger than the sun

Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic

Hark, now hear the sailors cry

Smell the sea and feel the sky

Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic

And when that fog horn blows I will be coming home

And when the fog horn blows I want to hear it

I don't have to fear it

And I want to rock your gypsy soul

Just like way back in the days of old

And magnificently we will flow into the mystic

When that fog horn blows you know I will be coming home

And when that fog horn whistle blows I got to hear it

I don't have to fear it

And I want to rock your gypsy soul

Just like way back in the days of old

And together we will flow into the mystic

Come on girl...

Too late to stop now...

SNOWBOUND.........

The Winwood/Capaldi lyrics in the song Many a Mile to Freedom include the words, ”Then together we flow like the river, and together we melt like the snow”…. From one of my favorite songs, the exquisitely beautiful imagery creates my most favorite description of love. The shape shifting quality of snow, the way water ultimately cannot adhere to or be confined to a boundary. How motion and change take place in the infinite essence of water. Since reading “The Hidden Messages in Water” by Masaru Emoto, I’ve taken the time when it snows to look at the individual snow crystals as they redecorate my world. It’s awesome to really see the temporal design and to be aware how the world is truly being changed with serenity and great beauty. To see an individual snowflake with the eyes of love is much like seeing the sparkle in someone who you share love. My brother was a human sparkler, a Gemini with Aries ascending which may explain to some why he was such a sparkler. Sometimes the sparkle would feel more like a burn, as I would lack patience with him and not take time to see the glow. I am older, he was younger and I would be tough on him. However the last time I saw him, as I turned to leave, he told me he loved me and my Capricorn restraint melted and I told him I loved him too. Like water, Love cannot adhere to or be confined by a boundary. It is eternal, shape shifting so that I now carry him in my heart and see him in his daughters’ smile. She was everything to him and is part of the shape shifting magick that runs through the eternal. Returning to his house several hours after those spoken words, midnight snow crystals were just beginning to fall, very delicately, as if they knew not to disturb the peace that had found my brother. He had truly changed my world with his ability to ignite everyone around him with Love and the snowflakes reminded me so. They still do. It’s almost three years and many a mile…